Chapter Forty Two

To make me feel better, Lynette took me to see Smokey and the Bandit that night. You know what? It's a pretty good film for making you forget about your best friend's wife trying to kill you and ending up in Hell. Pretty good. I ate one of those barbecue sandwiches wrapped in foil. It killed.

I was also struggling with the fact that I was in love with Lynette. She was dead, which makes dating almost impossible. It was my last day in her world, I am going to miss her dearly. Maybe I'll be with her again someday. I know one thing, you couldn't ask for a better friend or a better trailer.

The third and last night of playing on the flatbed was the best. My fingers were hopping across the guitar like fleas on a dog. The notes all came together and the songs poured out of me like water from a busted levy. I had learned what I needed to learn and now I was teaching.

The concert didn't end like I imagined. We were playing a rocking instrumental that I was making up as I went along. It was called "The Critical Inches." I don't know why. We were playing an extended finale with everybody banging their instruments and breaking the equipment when a huge flash of lightning bathed the entire scene with a strobe of brilliance. The audience rose, en masse, upward and into a giant black hole in the sky. The band and the flatbed disappeared. I was alone, standing on dirt road in a valley. The sky was a mixture of greys and reds like some mysterious, creative cocktail. The only sound was the wind until I made out what I believed, and rightly so, was a car radio.

My heart jumped and I sucked in enough air that it made an audible noise. Breaking over the top of the hill came a rattling, frightening automobile. I think it was a 1982 Ford Crown Victoria, black, and ominous. The tires never left the ground as it made the crest of the rise, but the shift in it's weight caused it to bottom out. The skirts nearly covered the wheels as it heaved and then bounced back into form. It spewed black smoke as it came. It was magnificent.

I was engulfed in a sea of brown dust as the car roared past me. The windows weren't tinted but I couldn't see through the glare of the glass. The big lumbering Ford stopped 20 yards from me and sat chugging and clanking as the wind carried the dust away. The brake lights were on and remained lit for a long, long, time. I heard the automatic clutch clang as the driver shifted into reverse, lighting up the back up lamps. Slowly the car crept towards me, the trunk wagging left and right as it came. Gravel and stones popped under the tires, just from the weight of the vehicle. The back end of the car passed me, barely missing crushing my feet. One door handle, two door handles. I was squinting into the driver's side window, trying to catch a glimpse of the monster that must be diving as the motor in the door, roared and pulled the glass down into the cavernous depths of the side panel.

The driver had a face that would embarrass a goat. His salt and pepper facial hair was unkempt and off putting. The wrinkles in his forehead looked more like scars and where he was not intending to have facial hair was thick stubble. He topped off this facial work of art with a black, brimless hat, the same color, or lack of color, as his suit. His thin black tie contrasted with his coffee stained shirt and was segmented by a simple, silver bar clasp. We stared at each other, his dull grey eyes fighting with my blues. The cigarette in the corner of his mouth caused him to flinch as the smoke would catch in his eyelashes. I could hear a sentence form in his throat and it made a low growling noise as it made its way to his mouth. He looked away for a moment, at nothing, and turned back.

"Hey...bud. You know where there's a Starbucks around here?"